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Al-Jazeera under attack from all sides

Al-Jazeera, the prominent Arab satellite TV network, has come under fire from both sides in the Gulf conflict and had part of its web hosting service withdrawn.

The station's English language website has been hacked repeatedly, although a temporary site is is currently online, while AOL, Yahoo and Reuters have all refused to carry advertisements for it.

Now US company Akamai, whose technology helped the website ride out the cyber-attacks, has pulled the plug, leaving it once again vulnerable to hackers.

In a statement, Akamai's director of public relations said: "Akamai worked briefly this week with Al-Jazeera to understand the issues they are having distributing their websites.

"We ultimately decided not to continue a customer relationship with Al-Jazeera, and we are not going to be providing them with our services."

Joanne Tucker, managing editor of Al-Jazeera's English language website, told the New York Times that she felt the company was reacting to political pressure. Akamai's late chief technology officer Daniel Lewin died on one of the aeroplanes flown into the World Trade Centre's north tower.

In 2002, Al-Jazeera claimed 161 million visitors to its website - 54 per cent from the Middle East, 39 percent from North America and Europe - and said that web hits had tripled since war began.

Earlier this week, Iraq expelled two of the station's journalists, Diyar Al-Omri and Taysir Alouni, for interviewing Iraqi citizens without an official minder present.

And, separately, the New York Stock Exchange has banned Al-Jazeera finance reporters Ammar Sankari and Ramsey Shiber, saying it would only accredit journalists from outlets that had "responsible business coverage".